The present invention relates to a pie dough with a reduced degree of cracking.
From the spectrum of home bakers to restaurant dessert chefs to food manufacturers is a shared experience that the act of making a pie crust of consistently acceptable texture, flavor, and color is both elusive and frustrating. Even though pie crust dough is made from a relatively simple recipe of ingredients that includes flour, lard or shortening, water and salt, the dough and resulting crust may have a wide range of physical and organoleptic features.
Pie crusts are typically evaluated on the basis of texture. The American Society of Baking Engineers in the Proceedings of the Thirty-Sixth Annual meeting held Mar. 7-10, 1960, at pages 292-303, described textures of baked pie crusts and corresponding pie crust doughs. Textures of pie crust range from mealy, to semiflaky, to flaky, to extra flaky. Flakiness or mealiness of a pie crust is largely dependent upon temperature, type and concentration of shortening as well as the method for blending shortening with flour.
The Baking Engineers described the easiest and most forgiving type of pie crust to make as a mealy crust. To make the mealy crust, a baker thoroughly blends shortening and flour together before water is added. The thorough blending makes a dough that is homogeneous. The baked mealy pie crust is a strong crust but is pale in color and lacks flakiness.
A flaky crust is made by preparing a laminated dough. The laminated dough is made by under-mixing shortening and flour in order to form small "pills" of shortening in flour before water is added. Typically, the temperature of shortening and flour is between about 55 and 60 degrees Fahrenheit. Cold water is added to this under-mixed mixture to make the laminated dough. This laminated dough is baked to a flaky crust. The flaky crust has a golden brown color and a crisp and flaky texture. Semi-flaky and extra-flaky crusts are also made by under-mixing the shortening and flour to form pills that are smaller and larger, respectively, than pills for a flaky crust. As can be appreciated, it is exceedingly difficult to consistently prepare the optimal degree of undermixing of shortening and flour to make a dough for a flaky crust.
Other undesirable consequences of improperly blending the shortening or lard with the flour is a non-uniformity of the blend and the color of the crust as well as a presence of large chunks of shortening or lard in the dough.
The problems associated with making pie doughs having consistently desirable qualities are intensified in commercial pie dough manufacture. Not only are there problems associated with degrees of under-mixing in a single batch of pie dough, subsequent processing steps also affect the characteristics of the dough and ultimately the final pie crust texture. Commercial pie doughs are typically made by mixing the dough ingredients, sheeting the dough and the cutting the dough into appropriate pieces having sizes and shapes desired for pie crusts. Optionally, for efficient packaging and handling, the dough pieces are folded prior to being packaged. Prior to being folded, the pieces of dough are usually sandwiched between two sheets of paper, such as wax paper or parchment paper. Not only does folding permit easier packaging, sandwiching the dough between sheets of paper makes the dough easier to handle by the consumer. For example, a circular piece of dough which has been folded into a quarter wedge (i.e. folding the circular dough once along its diameter, and then once along its radius perpendicular to the first fold) can be used by the consumer simply by unfolding the quarter wedge, removing one sheet of paper, placing the dough, paper side up, in the pie pan or on top of the filling and then removing the second sheet of paper. The sheets of paper make the dough less susceptible to stretching or breaking off at the edges.
After commercial pie doughs are packaged, they are typically stored in colder than ambient conditions to prevent or retard microbial damage or other types of food spoilage. The doughs can be refrigerated or frozen, or may be stored first under frozen conditions for more extended periods of time, followed by refrigerated storage as the pie doughs enter the distribution channel and ultimately end up with the final consumer.
Because of the fragile dough structure, particularly after the dough has been stored for a period of time under refrigerated or frozen conditions, folding creates problems in commercial pie doughs. Folded pie doughs often crack along the folds when the dough is unfolded by the consumer. Cracking is especially pronounced in pie doughs containing vegetable fat based shortenings. It is believed that the cracking occurs mainly due to the traditional under-mixing of the dough ingredients described above. A problem exists, therefore, in balancing the under-mixing needed to obtain a desirably flaky crust and overcoming cracking in the dough.
Other undesirable pie crust outcomes include crust "slump" and crust sogginess. Slump occurs when the pie dough placed in a pie pan is baked without a filling, usually to prepare a pie crust that is suitable for filling with unbaked fillings such as meringue or cream fillings. When the dough is baked without a filling, the dough "slumps" or deforms severely during the baking process. This deformation has been observed to occur on more than one side of the dough in the pan. The slumping is usually to such an extent that the resulting baked product is unsuitable for use as a crust since the deformed side or sides will not be able to hold filling once the filled pie is removed from the pan for serving. Therefore, a "slumped" pie crust is essentially unusable for its intended purpose. It is believed that slumping occurs due to dough shrinkage during baking, which may be related to dough sheeting, and is a particularly difficult problem that has plagued commercial pie dough producers for several years.
Another problem with pie crusts is a wet or soggy bottom- or under crust. The wet or soggy under crust occurs when moisture from the filling migrates into the under crust before the under crust structure has set during baking. The additional moisture from the filling prevents the under crust from developing a flaky or rigid texture during baking.
Yet another undesirable outcome often observed in commercial pie doughs that have been stored for extended periods of time is the formation of shortening "lumps" on the surface of the dough. Typically, as described above, pie doughs are undermixed to provide the desired flaky crust when baked. Undermixing results in non-uniform distribution of the fat material used to make the dough. In homemade pie doughs, shortening lumps are usually not observed since the baker typically rolls out the dough and very soon thereafter bakes the dough. Upon baking, of course, the fat material melts and forms the flaky, laminated crust.
In commercial pie doughs, however, a significant amount of time can pass between when the dough is first rolled out and when it is actually baked. In some cases, this period of time can exceed 12 months. During this period, the fat material can form lumps that appear on the surface of the dough, giving it an undesirable appearance. Upon baking, the fat lumps melt away, but often consumers will simply not use a dough that has lumps on its surface and will discard such a product.
Over the years, there have been a number of attempts to improve the process of making pie crust and the crust products. The Luedtke patent, U.S. Pat. No. 3,116,149 issued Dec. 31, 1963, describes a method for preparing a pastry dough that utilizes a pourable shortening. The pourable shortening ranges in concentration from about 35% to 80% of the flour content. The method also includes combining water with flour to develop gluten in the flour. Next, the pourable shortening is added to the flour-water mixture.
The Koolstra patent, U.S. Pat. No. 3,294,547 issued Dec. 27, 1966, describes a pastry dough of low moisture. The moisture content of this dough is about 10% to about 25% by weight.
The Norsby et al. U.S. Pat. No. 3,692,535 issued Sep. 19, 1972, describes a pastry dough that includes a fraction of developed wheat gluten in addition to shortening, flour and water. This dough additionally included a glycerine component. The Haasl et al. U.S. Pat. No. 4,297,378 issued Oct. 27, 1981, describes a dough composition that includes a high starch, low enzyme flour, shortening, water, gluten and preservatives. The composition is used in making pie dough which, during manufacture, is pre-sheeted and folded twice for packaging and then is unfolded by the consumer for use.